"Just let's take the mouse as an example. To be successful, Windows 1.0 really needed a mouse. So we built one. Early reviews of mice were not very positive as people struggled to understand the real value. In fact, actually it was so new that Canadian customs quarantined the Microsoft mouse at the border for four weeks thinking that it was alive."

Seems like an odd tale, but he wasn't laughing when he said it.

I want to know more, so I've asked the Canada Border Services Agency and Microsoft to try to track down the incident in question. Stay tuned.

I could believe that someone encountering a box labeled "mouse" might have sent it off to quarantine back then (since the word was not yet commonly recognized as referring to a computer accessory), but I really doubt someone who looked at the device itself would mistake it for a real rodent.

I could believe that someone encountering a box labeled "mouse" might have sent it off to quarantine back then (since the word was not yet commonly recognized as referring to a computer accessory), but I really doubt someone who looked at the device itself would mistake it for a real rodent.

Wouldn't a SEALED box be enough to clue someone in that the contents weren't actual rodents? Unless Canada quarantines freeze-dried feeder mice as well as live ones.

I don't know much about Canada customs, but I could fathom having some sort of policy for dead animals as well as live ones. Perhaps not a quarantine per se, but I could see a box labelled "mouse" getting flagged in some way if customs was unsure of the contents. It's wouldn't stretch the limits of the imagination that someone could try and ship research mice internationally, and customs probably needs to be aware of what they are, if they've been infected with anything, etc.

Hadn't Apple computers been using mice for several years by the time Windows came out? Sure Apple was not as ubiquitous as PCs, but they were well known nonetheless.

They predate the Mac - Apple got the idea to use them from Xerox PARC who had a machine called the Star or something that featured a mouse as an input device. It was not very popular, but mouse input systems were not invented by Apple.

I actually would think that the Macintosh was more poplar that Windows 1.0 was...